AN 



OR A.TIO ]sr 



BEFORE THE 



RE-UNION SOCIETY 



VERMONT OFFICERS, 



Kepresentatives' Hall, Moxtpeliee, Yt., 



minhev 22a, 1868; 

By QEN. p. T. WASHBURN, 

WOODSTOCK, YT. 



MONTPELIER : 
J. & J. M. POLAND, PRINTERS. 

1869. 







SMITHSONIAN DICPOSIT. 



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AN 

O E^T I O 3S^ 



BEFORE THE 



RE-UmON SOCIET 



YERMONT OFFICERS 



IN ;rHE 



Representatives' Hall, Moi^tpeliee, Yt.^ 

^ ©ctaljBr 22tl, 1868, : . ! 



By OEN. p. T. AVASHBURN. 

avoodstock, vt. 



MONTPELIER : 
J. & J. M. POLAND, PRINTERS. 

1869. 



JOIxVT RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR THE PRINTING 
OF THE ADDRESS OF GENERAL P. T. WASHBURN 
BEFORE THE RE-UNION SOCIETY OF VERMONT 
OFFICERS. 

Whereas, The Address delivered before the Re-uuion Society of 
Vermout Officers, during the present session, by General P. T. 
Wasiiburx, was a brief yet comprehensive review of the part 
taken by Vermont in the late war, and contains many facts impor- 
tant to a complete military history of our State, Therefore : 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives^ That the 
Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate be directed to pro- 
cure the printing of one thousand copies of said Address for the 
use of the General Assembly. 

GEORGE W. GRANDEY, 

Speaker of the House. 
STEPHEN THOMAS, 

President of the Senate. 



STATE OF VERMONT, 

Office of Secretary of State. 

I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of a Joint Reso- 
lution passed at the iVnnual Session of 1868, as appears from the 
files of this office. 

In witness whereof, I hereunto subscribe my name, and affix the 
seal of this office, at Montpelier, this twenty-first day of 
\ L. s. [ 'November, hi the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-eight. 

GEORGE W. WING, 

Deputy Secretary of State. 



OEATION. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Vermont Offi- 
cers' Ee-Union Society : — The notice for your meeting 
has announced your purposes, and has, perhaps unintention- 
ally, but most significantly and beautifully, prescribed a 
programme for your Address. In addition to the renewal, 
"through social intercourse, of the ties of friendship formed 
in the field," you desire to keep " green and sacred in your 
hearts the memories of the five thousand, who gave their 
lives for the cause " of freedom and the Union, and " to 
draw a renewed inspiration and renewed courage for the 
work yet before you from the ' touch of a comrade's elbow ' 
and the sight of the shot-rent standards, under which you 
fought and so many of your heroes fell." To direct your 
attention to the prominent circumstances, which connected 
you, and your deceased comrades, and the thousands of 
enlisted men who served with you, with the State which you 
represented in the field, and, from a consideration of the 
sacrifices made and the results achieved at home and abroad, 
to arrive at some appreciation, imperfect though it may be, 
of the work yet remaining to be accomplished, is the task 
which you have thus imposed upon me. Trusting to your 
forbearance, your kind consideration, your hearty apprecia- 
tion of good intentions, however crudely accomplished, with 
which heretofore, through the years of war, you have cheered 



8 

and encouraged me in the performance of the duties and 
responsibilities which devolved upon me, I proceed, as I 
1)6 st may, to its accomplishment. 

The history of Vermont in the war for the preservation of 
the Union remains to be written. Its minutest details, yet 
fresh in your memories, are preserved of record in the offi- 
cial archives of the State, their most sacred deposite, for the 
use of the future historian, when memory fading into tradi- 
tion shall require their reproduction in the enduring form 
which literature gives to facts, and time shall furnish a 
stand point, free from partisan prejudice and personal par- 
tiality, from which the past may be viewed in connected 
panorama. But in the mean time it cannot be inappro- 
priate, that we should devote the hour allotted to us to a 
brief review of its prominent features, and a slight tribute 
to the memory of those of our fellow citizens, who, with 
more than 275.000 of their comrades, have made upon the 
altar of their country the highest and holiest sacrifice, that 
man can ever make, — the offering of their lives, — a burnt 
offering upon fields of fire, rendered necessary by the Nation's 
sins and rewarded by the Nation's purification. 

When, after one encroachment had followed another, and 
the struggle between the earnest advocates and exponents of 
absolute freedom and its opponents had become year by year 
more bitter and intensified, and slavery yet demanded broader 
territory for its unskilled agriculture, — after Missouri had 
been surrendered to its grasp, — Texas had been enveloped 
in its dark folds, — Kansas had become a free State only 
through a purification by blood, — and still it was insisted, 
that all the Ijroad territories of the nation should be surren- 
dered to its demands, — the Judiciary obeyed its behests, — 
the chiefs of the government forgot the fundamental idea oi' 
the government and the source of its prosperity, treason was 
plotted, conspirators found favored audience in the Execu- 



9 

tive Chamber, the armament of the nation was so dispersed 
as to be unavailable for its protection, and the loyal States 
were awakened by the first overt act of Secession, as by the 
sudden convulsion of an earthquake, to the knowledge that 
the integrity of the Nation was in- dire hazard, that the Rep- 
resentative Federal Union, which our Fathers had transmit- 
ted to our care, was upon tlie brink of disruption, and that 
we were strong only in the immutable principles of right, in 
our reliance upon the overruling power of a just God, and 
in our own untrained, unskilled numbers — the State of Ver- 
mont, in common with most of the loyal States, was poorly 
prepared for the emergency, though in Ijetter condition than 
some. The universal burst of popular indignation and of 
fierce determination to save the Government at all hazards 
was the same in all ; but Massachusetts and New York, by 
means of their organized militia, were enabled to render, 
with the utmost promptness, the assistance which was 
required for the preservation of the Capital of the Nation ; 
while in Vermont, the militia, which had existed and flour- 
ished from the commencement of the State Government, fos- 
tered by the recollections of two wars, had been destroyed 
as an organized body by the statute of 1844 so effectually, 
that in the year 1855 there was not in the State, and had 
not been for years, even the semblance of a military organ- 
ization, and it had become the received opinion throughout 
the State, incited by years of peace and favored by a false 
economy, that no emergency could arise which would ren- 
der it of any importance that the men of arms-bearing age 
should be organized, drilled, disciplined, or even armed. 

Fortunately, as the result proved, in 1856 the legislature 
enacted a statute permitting the formation of volunteer com- 
panies, the provisions of which were sufficient to stimulate 
the organization of a few companies in 1857 and 1858 ; and 
when, in April, 1861, the proclamation of the President was- 



10 

issued, calling for 75.000 militia to serve for three months, 
there were upon the Roster in the office of the Adjutant <t 
Inspector General the names of twenty-two companies, — 
several of them, however, unprovided with arms, and all 
deficient in numbers. The enrolment of the militia, required 
by statute, had been defectively performed ; from many towns 
no returns had been made, and neither records nor files 
•existed, from which the number of able-bodied men in the 
State, liable to perform military duty, could be determined 
with even an approximation to correctness. 

Alarmed by the ominous gloom of the thickening political 
horizon, the Governor of the State, in January, 1861, had 
issued his order directing each commander of a company to 
assemble his men at once and ascertain and report without 
delay, whether they would volunteer to enter into the service 
of the United States, in case it should be found necessary to 
resort to arms. The order was obeyed and was responded 
to by the several companies. But even this measure failed 
to induce a realizing belief, that any thing serious was 
impending. The deficiencies in the ranks remained unfilled ; 
and the people were apathetic, regarding the events, which 
were crowding thickly upon them, more as matters of curi- 
osity and interesting items of daily news, than as real facts, 
prophetic of the future, which were to influence their lives, 
the history of the Government, the safety of the Nation, and 
all that they held most dear in person, family and property. 

In this condition of the militia and of the militia law, the 
officers of the State were required to raise, organize, arm 
and send out, for immediate active service in the field in the 
army of the United States, the quota of troops required from 
Vermont. 

To the partial, incomplete and extremely deficient militia 
organization, then existing, and the fiery impulse of the peo- 
ple, which enabled its officers to fill its scanty ranks without 



11 

delay, Vermont is indebted for her ability to respond to this 
first requisition for men, made when delay, even for a week, 
might involve the destruction of the Nation, or prolong the 
contest, until endurance could no longer be borne ; and to 
Governor Fairbanks, whose indomitable energy would allow 
no check, and to his efficient staff officers, enduring gratitude 
is due for the promptness with which the necessary equip- 
ment for war was provided. 

Of this First Regiment of Vermont Volunteers I must be 
allowed to speak with pride. They were first to volunteer 
from the State ; the order for their organization was issued 
on the twenty-third of April ; they were in camp on tne sec- 
ond of May, left the State on the ninth, bore proudly through 
the streets of New York the little sprig of evergreen, which 
designated each man as one of the noble race of Green 
Mountain Boys, whose fathers had fought and won at Ben- 
nington, and whose sons had maintained the integrity of their 
sires, until they had gained for their State the proud title of 
"The Star that never sets"; they were in Fortress Monroe 
on the thirteenth, — too late to save Norfolk, with its 
immense armament, which treachery had surrendered to 
treason only a few days preceding their arrival, but season- 
ably to preserve the Fortress from capture by the rebel 
bands which then swarmed under its very walls and effectu- 
ally blockaded every approach by land ; they served faith- 
fully their term ; the name of the first battle of the war is 
inscribed upon their record ; and when they returned to be 
disbanded, it was but to tender service again in other organ- 
izations, again to maintain the honor of the State and the 
integrity of the Nation in field and camp. The history of 
every subsequent organization, the history of Vermont in the 
war, is in part their history. 

In the mean time, upon the call of the Executive, the peo- 
ple of the State, by their elected representatives, met in coun- 



12 

cil to devise ways and means for performing worthily and 
promptly their part in the great strnggie, which they had 
scarcely l)egan to realize. So little were the extent of the 
exigency and the resources of the State understood and 
appreciated, that, beside making some slight provision for 
calling out the previously neglected and scanty organized 
militia, they authorized the raising of two regiments immedi- 
ately, for two years' service, and four more regiments if 
■necessary ; — and even with this as the extent of the provis- 
ion made, there were men, whose intelligence and patriotism 
could not be doubted, who argued with earnest sincerity, 
that the provision made was greatly in excess of the neces- 
sity, — and army officers of large experience, and even think- 
ing and well informed men resident in the State, insisted, 
that to raise three regiments and keep their ranks filled would 
test the capacity of the State to the utmost. What would 
have been the thoughts of those men and what the action of 
that legislature, could the veil of futurity have been for a 
moment raised, and they could have known, that before that 
rebellion should end, before the terms offered by humanity and 
justice to wrong and oppression should be accepted at Aj^po- 
niattox, Vermont would raise eighteen regiments, three batter- 
ies and three detached companies, requiring for their original 
organizing and the replenishing of their constantly depleting 
ranks more thah thirty-four thousand men, at a cost of more 
than nine millions of dollars, happily we are not required to 
speculate. The error of those days was that each side under- 
rated the other. Had the magnitude of the approaching 
contest been appreciated, compromise might for a time have 
prevented its occurrence, and the Nation have been left to 
struggle for a few years longer with the ulcer, which was 
gnawing at her vitals, — but which yet would have ultimately 
been required to be removed, not by the soothing appliances 
of scheming and compromising politicians, but only by the 



13 

harsh operation of actual excision. In the wise providence 
of God, the contest has been fought and won ; and if it has 
taxed our resources and our faith beyond the possibility of 
anticipation, it has nevertheless enabled us to transmit to 
those who shall succeed us a more priceless legacy, than our 
fathers bequeathed to us, — a Constitution freed from com- 
promises, — a government realizing in fact, what previously 
was but a splendid theory, that " all men are born free 
and equal." 

But two acts of that legislature must ever be regarded as 
eminent illustrations of their wise and patriotic forethought. 
They deemed it unjust that the gathering volunteers from 
Yermont should make all the sacrifice, and those who 
remained within the State enjoy the result without cost, — 
and they provided, that every enlisted man, serving in a Ver- 
mont organization, should receive from the treasury of the 
State seven dollars per month in addition to his pay from the 
United States. And they held, that it would be a disgrace 
to the commonwealth, if the families of its brave defenders, 
who had given to the service of the State their sole depend- 
ence for the necessaries of life, should ever be deemed, or 
treated, or even assisted, as town paupers, — and they pro- 
vided, that those families should be treated as the beneficia- 
ries of the State and be furnished by an agent of the State 
with all the assistance they required. From that time the 
patriot, having a family, or relatives, dependent upon him, 
however poor in worldly goods, could enter and remain in 
the service with the undoubting certainty, that their necessi- 
ties would be relieved and their comfort be provided for by 
the State, which had assumed their guardianship. How 
much of alleviation this may have brought to the death beds 
of soldiers dying from disease, or wounds, how much it may 
have rendered more endurable the hardships of the cam- 
paign and of the battlefield, we may never know. But these 



14 

two wise and spirited enactments, originating in the brain of 
some far-seeing man, to whom, for the conception, the people 
of the State should be ever grateful, were the foundation of 
the promptness with which every subsequent call for men 
was met, and of the consequent position which the State was 
enabled to attain. 

The action of the people of the State during the succeed- 
iuff four vears of war is too recent and too familiar to need 
more than mention. Everywhere from our rugged mountain 
slopes and our beautiful valleys, from the field, the workshop, 
the counting-room and the scenes of professional life, the 
young and the brave, abandoning the pursuits of peace, with 
which alone they were familiar, abandoning wives, children, 
and parents, the delights of home and the comforts of home 
life, with a readiness and a unanimity, which evinced, more 
than words can describe, how dear to the people was the 
cause which was involved, assumed the garb and weapons of 
the soldier and put themselves in training for their new pro- 
fession. The State furnished means with lavish hand. To 
her executive officers enlarged and extraordinary powers, 
the necessity of war, were freely conceded. The towns 
assumed cheerfully the quotas that were assigned to them, 
and vied with each other in friendly contest to avoid a draft. 
Every selectman became a recruiting officer, — every hamlet 
and every farm was diligently canvassed for recruits. As 
time progressed, and the supply of men became more lim- 
ited, and the first enthusiasm, which had induced the belief 
that the contest was to be terminated in some very brief 
period of time, gradually gave way to the stern realities of 
protracted war, the towns increased the inducements offered 
to volunteers, until, under the call of July, 1864, in the 
midst of the campaign from the Rapidan to the James, when 
the Army of the Potomac, under the immediate eye of Grant, 
were engaged in daily conflict, and the long rolls of casual- 



15 

ties from the Wilderness, ripottsylvaiiia and Cold Harbor, 
and the hospital returns from one hundred and twenty-five 
General Hospitals told to the citizens of the State, that 
recruits then obtained were needed for and would be at once 
placed in the front rank of actual battle, bounties attained 
their highest point, and the towns cheerfully paid five hun- 
dred dollars, and in many cases a thousand dollars, to each 
volunteer ; and the required quota was filled without a single 
drafted man. 

With a grand list, as the basis of taxation in 1861, of 
$970,690 09, a population of 315.116, and an enrolled mili- 
tia, as near as could be ascertained, of 36.680, the State 
furnished for the war 34.238 men, at an expense of $9,087.- 
353 40, — of which sum 15.215.787 70 was expended by the 
several towns, in their municipal capacity, without expecta-^ 
tion of repayment, — an average for the State of more thau 
nine hundred cents upon each dollar of the Grand List. I 
do not mention this boastfully; but it is an item in the his- 
tory of the State, of Avhich her citizens have a right to be 
proud. If the emergency was attended with lavish expense, 
it also justified it ; and no complaint has ever been made of" 
the amount. 

The Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Regiments of 
Infantry, the First Regiment of Cavalry and the three com- 
panies of Sharp Shooters followed each other in rapid suc- 
cession in 1861 ; the Seventh and Eighth Regiments went 
into camp in the midst of the severity of a Vermont winter ; 
and the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Four- 
teenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Regiments of Infantry and; 
two Batteries of Light Artillery followed them from the State 
in 1862. In that single year 11.952 of our bravest and best, 
men volunteered their services to the nation, without draft, 
and with a very slight bounty in a few cases, — a very large 
proportion with none. To the men who volunteered for 



16 

tliree years, I am not aware that any bounty was paid, unless 
as subsequent appreciation of patriotic service, until after 
1862. Under subsequent and often repeated calls for troops 
the Seventeenth Regiment and the Third Battery were raised 
and sent forward ; and the ranks of the old regiments, 
depleted by death, disease, and the casualties of the service, 
were filled by recruits, taking their places by the side of the 
scarred, war-worn veterans who remained, and carrying to 
them that encouragement, which those only who have expe- 
rienced it can appreciate, that their State had not forgotten 
them, — until, when the long contest culminated in victory, 
and the vanquished but stubborn rebellion had collapsed, 
10.437 men had been sent for this purpose, — more than 
thirty-four thousand in all, — from the comparatively small 
but glorious old Green Mountain State. 

Our Fathers, with Avise appreciation of the present, and 
perhaps with prophetic anticipation of the future, inscribed 
upon the banner of the State of Vermont the motto " Free- 
dom and Unity," — freedom for all men of every race, — 
freedom for self-government, — freedom for the equal rights 
of all, — the Unity of the States, the confederated exponents 
and defenders of the rights of man. When the martyr Lin- 
coln proclaimed liberty to the enslaved, the motto of the 
State became the battle-cry of the Nation. Time and again 
have the stalwart men of the State flaunted the banner bear- 
ing that motto in the face of defiant rebels ; — never once has 
it been left in their possession. 

But in alluding to the patriotic deeds of patriot men, let 
us not forget the mothers in the State, those tender, loving, 
shrinking mothers, called upon to give consent to the enlist- 
ment of their sons into a service, of which they knew nothing, 
but that it was beset with danger and death, — impelled on 
the one hand by the stern demand of patriotism, and keenly, 
most keenly, tortured on the other by the thought of surren- 



17 

dering to privation, exposure and the chance of sudden 
death the children whom they had borne, and nursed and 
watched from birth with all a mother's love and all a moth- 
er's care. Nearly, if not quite, one-third of the soldiers from 
the State required the consent of parents to their enlistment 
into the service of the country. To give that consent must 
have involved a conflict as keen, a forgetfulness of self as 
complete, a devotion to country as perfect, as was ever 
required from the soldier in the sterner conflicts of actual 
war. And the wives, the sisters, the daughters, and the 
betrothed, — let them never be forgotten, when the sacrifices 
and exertions of Vermont are remembered. Each and all 
surrendered all that they loved most dear on earth at the 
call of the State, — they gave infinitely more than treasure, 
for they gave that, for which each would gladly have given 
life itself. Most nobly have they contributed to the record 
of Honor which the State has earned. 

But to find the full page of that record, we must follow 
those patriot soldiers to the field. And here I falter, — for 
I cannot do justice to their bravery, their endurance, their 
gallant bearing in every time of trial and of danger. The 
battle flags displayed in these legislative halls, and in yonder 
vestibule, torn and pierced by shot and shell, shreds, only, 
of the beautiful banners they once were, with the tablets, 
upon which are inscribed the battles through which they 
were borne, though silent, more eloquently speak of the 
deeds of the brave men who fought and died under their 
folds, than the most finished eloquence of the most 
gifted orator. 

I do not need to tell you of the glorious record of the 
"Old Brigade," — the "best brigade in the Army of the 
Potomac," — distinguished alike for fearless courage in 
fight, patient endurance in camp, and unwearied diligence 
upon the march. I need not tell you how at Lee's Mills 
5 



18 

they forded the Warwick in the face of the enemy's fire, car- 
ried the rebel entrenchments and held them against repeated 
attacks by thrice their number for hours, until they were 
ordered to retire, — how they endured the seven days, from 
Savage Station to Harrison's Landing, when every day was 
spent in continuous fighting and every night in marching, — 
how they fought at the first Fredericksburgh, — of the gal- 
lant charge at Marye's Height, crossing at the double quick 
the open plain of a mile in width and storming successfully 
the enemy's works, — how at Bank's Ford they held at bay 
the victorious rebels and saved the Sixth Corps, — how at 
South Mountain they charged and drove the enemy from a 
position which appeared impregnable, — of their exploit at 
Funkstown, unexampled in history, where in extended skir- 
mish line of three miles and without support they repelled 
three several attacks of rebels in line of battle, and retained 
their position, — of that stubborn, fearful fight at the Wilder- 
ness, where, holding'^the key of the position, a line, the pierc- 
ing of which would have exposed the reserve artillery and 
the wagon train of the army to immediate capture and would 
have effectually severed Hancock's Corps from the main body 
and driven him back upon Fredericksburgh, with but 2800 
muskets they resisted the repeated impetuous charge of a 
division of 10.000 rebels and held their line, though at the 
fearful cost of three out of every five, — more than 1700 in 
all, killed, or wounded, — of their gallant behavior at Spott- 
sylvania, where, having charged and carried the enemy's works 
far in the advance, they refused to retire, when ordered, and 
declared that they would hold them six months, if furnished 
with rations and ammunition, — of the deadly conflict on 
the twelfth of May, 1864, when only a breastwork of logs 
and earth separated the combatants and almost hand to hand 
the fight was maintained at scarce a musket's length apart, — 
of Cold Harbor, the march to Petersburgh, the fight at the 



19 

Weldoii Kailroad, never to l^e forgotten by those whose 
friends and relatives were there captured and consigned to 
the tender mercies of Andersonville, — of Opequan, Charles- 
ton, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, — of the tedious winter 
in front of Petersburgh, and the magnificent charge of the 
second of April, which drove the rebels from their last strong- 
hold and compelled them to that final disastrous flight, which 
resulted in tlie annihilation of the rebel strength. Through 
all this that brigade of men of iron marched and fought, 
until their record has added its brightest pages to the history 
of the State, and the name of the "■ Vermont Brigade " has 
become as widely known as that of the State itself. 

Shall we ever forget the services rendered and hardships 
endured by the regiments and batteries stationed in the 
Department of the Gulf, and subjected to the severity of an 
unhealthy climate so unlike their own ? — the Seventh Regi- 
ment, depleted to a skeleton by disease before they had had 
time to fire a musket in active service, but who noJjly vindi- 
cated at Spanish Fort the honor of the State, and compelled, 
by their fearless bravery, the recognition of their claim to 
have lieen ever brave and true, and of their right, denied by 
Butler, but ordered by the gallant Sheridan, to inscribe upon 
their colors the name of Baton Rouge ; — the Eighth Regi- 
ment, — can we forget the almost incredible labor performed 
by them in opening the railroad to Lafourche, — the marcli 
from Brashear City to Alexandria, with the Ijatties fought 
and won, — their dashing bravery at Vicksburgli, where, in 
the first attack, they marched through and over two ])rigades 
in front and from the third became t]ie first line of attack, 
holding their position with dogged obstinacy until the for- 
tress fell, — or their gallant enduring- courage at Cedar 
Creek, where, attacked in front, flank and rear, they main- 
tained their ground, until, of sixteen officers and one hun- 
dred and forty men engaged, thirteen officers and one 



20 

hundred and nine men had been killed, wounded, or cap- 
tured ; — the First Battery, who at Pleasant Hill, with 
double canister and at half distance poured into the breasts 
of the charging column of rebels such a resistless storm as 
enabled them to save the guns which they had been ordered 
to spike and abandon ; — and the Second Battery, who at 
Plains' Store and Port Hudson made their record for 

history ? 

Let me also, in this brief retrospect, do full justice to the 
Ninth Regmient, who effaced at Chapin's Farm the memory 
of their misfortune, not their fault, at Harper's Ferry, — who 
won the palm in the eighteenth corps for soldierly drill and 
discipline, and were the first of the Union Army to enter 
Richmond;— to the Tenth Regiment, who, after long and 
wearying delay upon the banks of the Upper Potomac, nobly 
earned at Orange Grove, in every battle from the Rapidan to 
the James, in the final assault on the second of April, and at 
Sailor's Creek, the right to be recognized as true sons of 
Vermont ; — and to the Eleventh Regiment, who, in the con- 
struction of the defences at Washington, left an enduring 
monument of their toil, whose active service commenced at 
Spottsylvania, and whose subsequent history is that of the 
" Old Brigade." 

No unimportant part of the record of the history of Ver- 
mont in the war has been won by the fearless riders, the 
gallant, dashing troopers, of the First Vermont Cavalry 
whose colors are inscribed all over with the names of sev- 
enty-tliree battles, and who were always ready to follow 
where any man would lead, or to lead Avhere any man would 
follow. They rode, as though it were pastime, from the 
Rapidan to the defences of Richmond, around Lee's flank 
and rear, — from Ream's Station through South Eastern Vir- 
ginia back to the lines before Petersburgh, — from Winches- 
ter to Waynesboro, and thence to the Chesapeake, fightmg 



21 

as often as the enemy were seen and dealing destruction to 
his supplies and his communications. Who can read, with- 
out a thrill of admiration, the record of that final charge at 
Cedar Creek, where, after a whole day of desperate fighting, 
of retreat and advance and varying fortune, the enemy were 
driven, routed, demoralized and disheartened, from the field, 
and the ready carbine, the sabre and the revolver, in the 
hands of men goaded to the utmost limit of excitement by 
the evidences of brutal Imrbarity to the Union wounded and 
dead, which they had witnessed as they traversed the l^attle- 
field, took ample revenge in the carnage of blood, and 
twenty-three captured guns were parked as their trophies 
of victory. 

The Sharp Shooters, always placed in the front, ever sent 
to explore the most dangerous places, accustomed to direct 
with unerring aim the deadly rifle, and upon the skirmish lino 
to make and receive the first attack, though they were com- 
paratively few in number and so connected with organiza- 
tions from other States as to prevent the full record of their 
daring deeds from being generally known and appreciated, 
have yet earned ample meed of praise. Of the campaign 
from the Rapidan to Petersburgh their official report says, — 
" Since the first gun in the Wilderness there has been no 
cessation of artillery and musketry and no resting-place in 
the whole campaign." The record of their engagements and 
the ratio of their loss conclusively prove how deservedly they 
won the confidence of their commanders. 

The bloody record of the Seventeenth, the youngest of 
Yermont's regiments, deserves more than to be merely men- 
tioned. Within eighteen days after they left the State they 
were placed in the front rank of battle. Without drill, 
and scarce knowing an order, save that which directed them 
to advance, they fought their way with reckless bravery from 
the Wilderness to the lines of Petersburgh, their tattered 



22 

colors, ever advanced as far as the foremost, now the prop- 
erty and the sacred charge of the State, attesting with silent 
but impressive eloquence their right to demand rank by the 
side of Vermont's bravest sons. I would that I could 
describe to you the fearful scene at the explosion of the 
Mine, where every commissioned officer was left, killed, or 
captured, and the colors, grasped by one as they fell from 
the hands of another of their brave defenders, were yet 
borne from off the field of battle, with scarce fifty men left 
to rally around theni. The record of the regiment, with its 
fifteen engagements, is one of honor, and yet one of blood 
throughout. 

The chances of the campaign and their comparatively brief 
term of service gave to the Third Battery but few opportuni- 
ties to achieve distinction ; but those were gallantly improved 
and their record is honorable to themselves and to the State. 
Few of them, while living, will forget their service in " Fort 
Hell," or the close and decisive artillery fire of the second 
of April. 

But liere another glorious scene, the culminating point of 
the rebellion, that of the memorable third of July, 1863, made 
a bright and dazzling page in the history of Vermont by the 
gallantry of her sons, demands attention. The State had 
sent out, upon l)rief notice and for short term of service, a 
brigade of men, — the Second Vermont Brigade. They left 
with high Iiopes of achieving distinction, ambitious of testing 
their right to challenge position by the side of the " Old 
Brigade." They lay inactive upon the banks of the Occoquan 
through the tedious vv^inter until their term of enlistment had 
well nigh expired, and their anticipation of active service had 
yielded to the longing desire for home, which at such times 
protracts the lingering days. But picket duty and the protec- 
tion of an interior line were not to be the extent of their 
experience in the field. Lee, flushed with victory at Chan- 



23 

cellorsville, had led his legions across the Potomac and 
transferred the seat of ^yar to the free soil of the North. 
His fancied opportunity for final siiccess was before him, and 
he hastened to improve it. On the twenty-fifth of June the 
order was received, directing the Second Brigade to report 
at Gettysburgh. They toiled for seven days through rain and 
mud and exhausting heat, and arrived upon the field, weary 
and exhausted, just at the conclusion of the disastrous fight 
of the first of July. On the evening of the second day the 
Union ranks had been pierced and ])roken by a desperate 
charge, and the chance of war placed the untried troops of 
Vermont in the front line, — the exigency of the moment not 
allowing delay for bringing up more distant but veteran 
troops. That line they held, — giving, that evening, by a gal- 
lant dash in front, a specimen of their spirit. The next day, 
when every other part of the line had been unsuccessfully 
attempted, Lee, informed that the left centre was held by 
untried militia, directed upon it for two fearful hours the 
terrific fire of more than one hundred pieces of artillery. 
The men of Vermont lay unprotected, while shot and shell 
ploughed the ground in front and rear and filled the air with 
demoniac sound. The tornado ceased, and the veteran divi- 
sion of Pickett was hurled upon them. Met by a courage as 
determined, by a fire as furious, as their own, and unable to 
advance against the pitiless storm of death, the charging col- 
umn changed their direction, hoping to find a weaker point. 
Then was the time for the Second Brigade. Changing front 
upon the battle-field with the precision of parade, they assailed 
the rebel column in flank and it disappeared before their 
impetuous charge. And while in the very flush of victory, 
with captured battle flags and unnumbered prisoners falling 
into their hands as the trophies of their triumph, when men, 
if ever, would lose their formation in the excitement of the 
moment, another change of front was made, another rebel 



. 24 

column, met by the Fourteenth Regiment with furious fire, 
was assailed in flank by the Sixteenth and annihilated ; — and 
Gettysburgh was won. Hearty were the cheers, with which, 
that night, the " Old Brigade" received their younger breth- 
ren into full communion, and recognized their right, earned 
by a baptism of blood, to rank by the side of Vermont's proud- 
est sons upon the roll of History. 

And thus the records show the people of Vermont entitled 
to the proud remembrance, that every organization sent from 
the State returned to the State the Colors with which it was 
entrusted, — that the record of every regiment is a record of 
honor, — and that the gallant soldiers of Vermont, in earning 
for themselves that record, have added new and increased 
lustre to the honor of their State, and have obtained for it a 
name which shall be imperishable in history. But at what 
fearful cost has this been done ! — 5,124 men lost by death, — 
5,022 men discharged and sent home, wrecks, only, of the 
physical vigor with which they entered the service, — a total 
loss, in all the various forms of casualty, of 13,724 officers 
and men. The proportionate ratio of the loss in battle of 
Vermont is second in the loyal States of the Union, — 
exceeded only by Kansas, long accustomed to ferocious fight- 
ing. In proportionate loss by disease Vermont stands third 
among the loyal States, — exceeded only by Iowa and Kansas. 
And in the proportionate number honorably discharged for 
disability she stands the fourth of the loyal States, — exceeded 
only by Maine, Michigan and West Virginia. If Vermont 
has earned a reputation in the war, of which her sons have a 
right to be proud, she has paid for it a price proportioned to 
its value. 

The names of your deceased comrades, whose memories 
are to be kept "green and sacred" in your hearts, yet fresh 
in your recollection, are known and honored throughout the 
State. Fifty-four commissioned ofl&cers, your brethren in 



25 

arms, endeared to you by many a hardship shared in commoir,. 
whose example and whose social qualities alike incited your 
emulation and won your affection, — among them, earning higb- 
place upon the Roll of Honor, the gallant Stone, Tyler, Bar- 
ney, Roberts, Preston, Dudley, Cliamberlin, Cummings, Eaton^ 
Crandall, Dwinnell, the self-sacrificing Jarvis, the young and 
ardent Dillingham, Buxton, and the brave Reynolds, — fell by 
your side at the head of their men in the front of battle, and 
by their death sealed the devotion of their lives to loyalty. 
May they never be forgotten. Patriotic towns have erected, 
monuments to the patriot dead ; and in every grave yard 
throughout the State are grassy mounds, whose marble head- 
stones mark the resting place of the soldier, where he awaits 
the final reveille. Let these monuments stand, while time 
shall endure, not merely as the votive offerings of a grateful 
people to commemorate brave deeds and men, but perpetual 
remembrances of the great principle of the universal equal- 
ity of man, illustrated by its defenders in their lives, but 
rendered sacred by their sacrifice, — so that, when your chil- 
dren's children, to the remotest generation, shall gaze rever- 
ently upon them, when your name and deeds shall have faded 
even from tradition, they shall say, each to the other, — these 
men died that we might be free. 

The war has closed, rebellion has been suppressed, the right 
of secession has been tried by the final arbitrament of the 
sword and has failed, the officers and men composing the 
organizations from Vermont have laid aside their arms, have 
assumed again the garb of citizens, have quietly resumed their 
places in the communities from whence they emerged and 
returned to their original peaceful employments, and there; 
are no indications left of the terrible events which so severely 
taxed the energies and resources of the State, except the rec- 
ord of their gallant deeds of bravery, the maimed veterans, 
whose appearance among us makes constant appeal to our 



26 

sympathies and our respect, and tlie vacant places in many a 
household, eloquent of the remembrance of the gallant men 
whose lives have been surrendered in defence of the great 
principles of freedom, unity and equality before the law. 

But has the contest closed ? — or has it only assumed a new 
form and been transferred to a different sphere ? The close 
of war brings with it duties as imperious as those of war 
itself. It was due to posterity, it was due to humanity, that 
the fruits of the victory should be preserved, — that those men, 
who had deserted, and had sought by force to divide the Gov- 
ernment, who had traitorously violated the most solemn oaths, 
who had desolated the homes of the North and had burdened 
the Nation with deljt, should be required, before again par- 
ticipating in the councils of the nation, or assisting in its 
legislation, to give the most l)inding security that they would 
thereafter, in the most perfect good faith, live as true and 
loyal citizens. Criminals of the deepest dye, pronounced 
guilty by the God of Battles on appeal of treason, they have 
no right to complain, if bound over under heaviest bonds to 
keep the peace. They were offered terms more liberal than 
they deserved, or had reason to expect, — terms so liberal, 
that, though freely offered and for a time adhered to, pru- 
dent and sagacious statesmen deemed them not free from 
hazard in the future. These terms were rejected, except by 
a single State, and were withdrawn ; — and, like the Sybil of 
old, the loyal people of the North offered others in their stead, 
made more onerous, and thereby more complete and perfect. 
These have been in form accepted by seven of the revolted 
♦States, — three have thus far refused to accede to them. 

But the form of acceptance has not carried with it the 
spirit of loyalty. The obligations which it imposes are 
regarded as lightly as the criminal regards the bonds which 
bind him for appearance at court, — to be evaded, if possible, 
or forfeited, with the hope that full payment will not l)e 



27 

enforced. Defiant and arrogant as ever, aided by the counte- 
nance and counsels of a Chief Magistrate of the Nation, who 
has deserted alike principle and party, and of their former 
allies in the North, political leaders, who are ready to sur- 
render for power and place all that the sacrifices of the war 
secured, they announce to us by their acts as unmistakably 
as by their words, that the rebellion, though suppressed, is 
not yet dead. 

They demand the violation of the [)ul)lic faith, pledged by 
Abraham Lincoln, with the full concurrence of the loyal 
States, to the only loyal class in the rebel States, that they 
and their posterity should thenceforth enjoy the equal rights 
of manhood ; to which the grateful response of the race is 
testified by the Muster Rolls of more than 186,000 volunteers 
in colored regiments, by the roll of 54,000 casualties in the ser- 
vice, by the records of Wagner, Port Hudson, Helena and Mo- 
bile. They demand the right to regulate suff"rage ; and tliey 
are regulating it every day with the rope, the rifle and the 
revolver. They demand the repudiation of the puljlic debt, or 
the recognition of their own. Their chiefs openly and boldly 
proclaim, that the "lost cause" is not yet lost, — that the 
fourth of March, if they and their allies are successful, shall 
inaugurate a reign of terror, which shall drive from the 
Southern States every loyal man, white, or colored, or over- 
whelm them in one common destruction. They demand, in 
short, that the victors shall accept terms from the vanquished 
under penalty of a renewal of the war. And their candidate 
for the second place in the Government was selected solely 
for the reason, that he placed himself beyond the possibility 
of misunderstanding upon a platform, which, though its planks 
are rotten and crumbling beneath his weight, declared, that 
every thing thus far accomplished at the South should be 
undone, that the reconstructed State Governments should be 
dispersed by force, and that the white people alone should be 



28 

allowed to re-organize their governments, and elect Senators 
and Representatives. 

Are these the principles for which you fought ? Is this the 
victory which you fancied had been won by the loyal North ? 
Shall we submit to the insolent terms thus imposed ? Better 
death, privation, poverty, the repetition an hundred fold of the 
sacrifices we have made, than such tame, cowardly submission. 
Faith to the loyal dead, faith to their widows and their 
orphans, faith to the outraged living, demand adherence to 
the principles for which the war was fought, and in defence 
of which our heroes died. 

What duty, then, remains for us ? What sin of omission, 
or of commission, yet remains unrepented and unpardoned, 
which thus protracts the punishment meted to us for the sin 
of slavery ? 

The National faith and the National honor, to be preserved 
at all hazards, demand, not only that slavery, but that every 
incident and result of slavery, shall cease to exist ; that the 
loyal colored men of the South shall retain inalienably the 
right to maintain by the ballot the privileges for which they 
were willing and were deemed worthy to contend with the 
])ayonet and the bullet ; that the public debt should be paid 
according to the letter and the spirit of the laws under which 
it was contracted, and the public credit be preserved without 
stain ; that treason " should be made odious" and traitors, 
whether at the North or at the South, be repressed and 
punished. 

The great captain of the age, whose genius devised and 
whose orders directed the movements of the loyal armies to 
iinal victory in the field, under whose eye you fought and 
your brave comrades died, whose name and fame are as dear 
to us as our own, and who is now the selected standard bearer 
of liberty and loyalty, has said, " Let us have peace." If 
we are true to ourselves, to our manhood, to our avowed 



29 

principles, to our plighted faith, peace, with its blessings, 
will prevail from the Atlantic to the Golden Gates of the 
Pacific, from the Dominion of Canada to the borders of the 
Gulf, — prosperity, exceeding all that we have ever yet 
known, will place us foremost among the nations of the 
earth, and a victory will be won by Grant in November, 
which shall perfect the fruits and secure the full results of 
the victory which he achieved at Appomattox. 

In whatever yet remains to be done for the securing of the 
full fruition of these glorious results, whether of action, or of 
further sacrifice, may that higher and Supreme Power, that 
rules the nations and controls the action of States, announce 
and enforce Sedgwick's famous order, — " Put the Yermont' 
ers ahead and keep the column closed up." 



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